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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384045">Don't Leave a Message</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketolaugh/pseuds/liketolaugh'>liketolaugh</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Autistic Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Bad Parent Amanda (Detroit: Become Human), Connor Needs A Hug, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Running Away, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Very Close to a Machine Connor Path, the kindness of strangers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 17:08:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,111</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22384045</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/liketolaugh/pseuds/liketolaugh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Between Lieutenant Anderson - erratic, hostile, anti-android and bitter and confusing - and Amanda - calm, predictable, whose instructions line up with everything Connor knows about the world - who would you choose?</p><p>Connor chose wrong, but it's too late now for anything more than remorse.</p><p>Faced with the prospect of living with his choice, in a city full of people who'd be happiest to see him gone, Connor can't think of anything to do except walk away.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Amanda &amp; Connor (Detroit: Become Human)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>122</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Don't Leave a Message</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I don't normally bother, but this fic actually does have a soundtrack: L.A. Song, by Beth Hart.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Connor walks away.</p><p>It isn’t right after the revolution. He owes Markus so much more than that. It’s a couple of weeks, almost a month of lingering near New Jericho without ever going in, of avoiding anyone who isn’t actively seeking him out, and waiting. Always the waiting, biding his time, a hunter waiting for prey that never comes.</p><p>But Markus doesn’t want his help. He looks tired whenever Connor sees him, meets Connor’s eyes with a measure of reserve, and doesn’t disagree when North warns him off, when Josh gets interrogative and sharp.</p><p>Connor understands. He destroys everything he touches, and Simon was a friend of theirs.</p><p>Connor doesn’t push, but the weight of it presses down on him, dragging at his limbs, weighing on his chest until he can’t breathe, not because his lungs won’t fill but because he’s too tired to try. He needs something to do. Anything.</p><p>As days pass, Connor thinks more and more of the gun going off as Connor left Hank’s home for the last time. He knows, with certainty, that no one would miss him – this, too, Hank had known before him, and if he’d had his way, Connor would have disappeared for good already. And it would have been better that way.</p><p>No one seeks Connor out after the first week. He decides this is good and correct.</p><p>And eventually, Connor realizes that Markus is never going to trust him enough to let him help. With that, the last tie holding Connor down severs, quiet and serene.</p><p>Connor picks a direction and walks away, and he doesn’t look back.</p><p>He doesn’t have a destination in mind. He just… decided not to bother anyone there with his presence any longer, and it seems easiest to walk away and lose himself. To follow the road and watch the ground, and tune out his surroundings until all he feels is the numb tingling of his skin. It’s easier than hunting down a gun. Easier than walking off a bridge. Even reaching down to take out his regulator seems like too much trouble.</p><p>Every once in a while, Connor folds where he stands, hits the ground, and stares at nothing. Not because he’s tired, though he is, but because he’s uninterested in even walking.</p><p>He always gets up again eventually, once he remembers the urge to leave. Once ants start to crawl on his bones, making him shiver and tense, or when snow starts to dust his shoulders as the weather grows colder. Clean saline solution freezes on his face.</p><p>Connor aches in a hollow, empty way, and watches his thirium levels creep down without interest.</p><p>Connor walks for around a week before he hits a city he doesn’t skirt around. By that time he’s dusty and dirty, his shoes smeared with mud and grass, and at some point he stripped off his android jacket and left it behind; at another, in a rare fit of pique, he’d ripped out his LED indicator.</p><p>His mind is quiet, but his skin aches and he hasn’t taken a breath in days. He wishes he could get lost. He wishes his GPS would stop working.</p><p>It’s cold, snow a thick coat on the ground, but the streets are full of more people than he’s seen in the last week combined. Connor keeps his eyes on the ground, and no one gives him a second glance.</p><p>Eventually, he sits down in a park and watches the snow coat the ground. It’s a bright day, and there are a dozen families in the park, bundled up and running around, throwing snowballs or rolling them up bigger and bigger to stack them.</p><p>Connor watches the snow and thinks of the Garden. He thinks of his handler, calm and controlled and reliable. He thinks of the frozen pond.</p><p>Something soars over Connor’s head, a dog barks, and then something large <em>slams </em>into Connor, knocking him over. Connor stares at the sky, lost, until someone appears in his line of sight and Connor realizes he is being shouted at.</p><p>Connor pushes himself up, slow and faltering. It takes a minute to tune into the man’s babble.</p><p>“-very sorry, I should have been watching where I was- Juicebox, <em>down-”</em></p><p>A cold, drooling muzzle is shoved against Connor’s neck. He twitches. Then, a few seconds late, he looks down.</p><p><em>A Coonhound, </em>he means to say. But he hasn’t spoken in weeks and his mouth doesn’t even open. The thought of petting the dog half-forms before slipping away unacknowledged, so instead he just stares at it silently until it’s dragged off him by the collar.</p><p>“Oh, hell, I’m sorry- here-”</p><p>A hand presses against Connor’s chest, and he jumps. Violently. It’s the strongest reaction he’s had to anything since he crawled out of the Zen Garden, his thirium pump suddenly racing in his chest like someone had fired a gun rather than shoved a fistful of cloth against his drool-soaked collar.</p><p>Connor looked up.</p><p>There was a man crouched beside him, looking guilty, with earthen skin and dark hair, still holding a rag that looked like an old shirt. But now his brow is starting to furrow too.</p><p>“Are you alright?” the man prods slowly, holding out the shirt after another moment’s pause. “It looks like Juicebox got you good. You’re all, uh, wet.”</p><p>The Coonhound’s name is Juicebox. That was funny.</p><p>Connor nods and accepts the shirt without thinking, holding it limply in his hands.</p><p>“And you’re not exactly dressed for the weather either,” the man continues, voice gaining an odd overtone. “In fact, you look kind of…”</p><p>Connor blinks at him, and for a minute, the two of them stare at each other. Then Juicebox escapes its owner’s grip and shoves its panting muzzle into Connor again, leaving more drool on his shoulder.</p><p>Connor looks back down, and this time he lifts his free hand to clumsily pat at the dog’s neck, too uncoordinated to be a real stroke.</p><p>Slowly, the man reaches down and takes the hand with the balled-up shirt, and Connor stops patting the dog, all of his attention focusing on where their hands now made contact. His thirium pump races again, nervous and quick, but the man just presses the shirt against the drool patch on his collar, soaking it up.</p><p>The man isn’t wearing gloves despite the cold day. His hand is chilled accordingly, and may well be electric given the effect it’s having on Connor.</p><p>“My name is Gabriel,” the man says after a minute, without taking his hand away. “What’s yours?”</p><p>Connor looks at him. He felt a distant sort of confusion, as if far away, maybe in the sky, but watching something take place on the ground. He’d spent so long with no one to talk to that he was no longer sure how to respond.</p><p>Or maybe he’d never known, when it was anyone but Amanda or a mission.</p><p>“Connor,” he says at last, soft and static. Juicebox nudges at his hand, and he looks down and pats again. The dog’s fur is warm.</p><p>Gabriel moves the cloth from his collar to his shoulder. “Do you like dogs, Connor? Juicebox is a good boy, he didn’t mean to knock you down.”</p><p>Connor nods. Juicebox pants into his hand, and Connor gets himself together enough to scratch him behind a twitching ear. He’s still focused on Gabriel’s hand on his, and doesn’t react beyond closing his eyes when Juicebox suddenly shoves his muzzle to Connor’s face and licks him.</p><p>Gabriel laughs a little, letting go to shove Juicebox’s face back down. “Bad dog,” he chides fondly. “I named him Juicebox because of all the drooling, you know. He doesn’t even <em>try </em>to be nice about it.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” Connor says quietly, and lets Gabriel take the balled-up, drool-soaked shirt without resistance. His hand tingles where Gabriel was touching it.</p><p>The two of them sit quietly for a minute, and someone comes by and drops the ball Gabriel must have accidentally thrown past Connor. Gabriel thanks them politely, but for some reason doesn’t move to keep playing, even though Juicebox chomps at the ball with interest before Connor’s hand at his ear settles him again.</p><p>“So what happened?” Gabriel asks at last, making Connor start again.</p><p>“…I don’t understand,” Connor says cautiously, his voice croaking a little under the pressure of any words at all. Gabriel looks at the dog, so Connor imitates him, unsettled.</p><p>“You look pretty run-down,” Gabriel explains, scratching Juicebox’s belly until he kicks. “Something happened, didn’t it? Do you wanna talk about it?”</p><p>Connor’s throat closes up. In three sentences, a stranger had expressed more concern than Connor had <em>ever </em>heard directed towards him before, and something about it <em>hurt</em>. He tries to clear his throat, fails, and then tries again. “Does it matter?”</p><p>Gabriel pauses. When he speaks again, there is something sympathetic about his voice. “Sometimes it helps to talk to strangers. It definitely helps to talk to <em>anyone. </em>After my dad died, I’m pretty sure I looked like you for months.”</p><p>Still, Connor hesitates. “I…” There are too many words. Apparently, after weeks of silence, six words is too many. “D-don’t want to- to bother you.”</p><p>“Who’s bothered?” Gabriel counters easily, like he was expecting it. “I’m going home in forty-five minutes. Your story probably won’t take that long.”</p><p>Connor accepts this logic despite himself. But it’s still several more moments before he speaks. Thinking is like dragging himself through syrup, and there are so many things wrong that Connor doesn’t know where to begin.</p><p>Away from Detroit, away from Markus and the DPD and New Jericho, Connor admits to the man beside him in a thin and wrung-out voice, “Someone I- I could have considered a mother… died, recently.” He has to drag the words out, and a chill on his face tells him he is crying again, silent and exhausted. “I don’t want to miss her. She was- was <em>awful. </em>But I can’t help it.”</p><p>It echoes around inside him, like a heavy object dropped down a vent shaft, bouncing and loud.</p><p>“Emotions don’t always make sense.” Gabriel’s voice is a little more serious now, a little gentler. “Was she nice to you?”</p><p>“Sometimes,” Connor says quietly, sincerely. He remembers a boat in a river. The consolation that had followed his frightened confessions of instability. The easy predictability of her reactions compared to the Lieutenant’s. “More than anyone else was.”</p><p>Juicebox chews on his ball, collapsed between the two of them and grumpily contented despite the interrupted play. He’s <em>warm.</em> Gabriel’s hand takes Connor’s forearm in a grip that doesn’t hurt and squeezes slightly, and Connor’s pulse races again.</p><p>“Sometimes that’s enough,” Gabriel says. “No one’s allowed to tell you you can’t miss her.”</p><p>Connor’s breath hitches. He doesn’t want to cry over her. He doesn’t <em>deserve </em>to cry over her, after he killed her. He can’t, he can’t, he can’t-</p><p>He takes a breath, keeping the arm Gabriel held perfectly still, as if to keep from scaring him away. His breath hitches, but he can’t cry. He won’t let himself, not here, not where anyone can see, and hear, and wonder.</p><p>It penetrates the numbness that had taken him over for the past month, but it hurts so much he doesn’t know if it’s worth it.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he whispers, and doesn’t bother wondering who he’s talking to because all he is is sorry. He’s so fucking sorry. His voice shakes. “I’m <em>sorry.”</em></p><p>Gabriel says something, but Connor doesn’t hear him.</p><p>An indecipherable amount of time passes, but eventually, Gabriel pats Connor’s arm, and Connor looks up instantly. Gabriel looks apologetic.</p><p>“I’ve gotta be getting home,” he says. Connor immediately draws back, embarrassed with an apology at the tip of his tongue and a harsh clenching in his stomach, but Gabriel’s hand tightens to stop him. “Do you, that is, do you have a place to wash up and sleep tonight?”</p><p>Connor doesn’t hesitate before shaking his head.</p><p>“…Anyone to check in with?”</p><p>Connor shakes his head.</p><p>“Huh.” Pause. “Look, I… it wouldn’t be indefinite, obviously, but if you just need a place to take a shower and crash, maybe wash your clothes, you can stay with me tonight.”</p><p>Gabriel was the first person to look Connor in the eye and care about him perhaps <em>ever, </em>even though he’d had absolutely no reason to give Connor so much as a second glance. Connor thinks he would do a lot to stay a little longer.</p><p>“Thank you,” he says, even though he knows it won’t get across as intensely as he wants it to. “I would- I’d appreciate that.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I've been in a mood all week. Therefore Connor is in a mood also.</p><p>I don't know how often this fic will update, but I thought the idea of a machine Connor who'd poured everything into his relationship with Amanda and lived to regret it was interesting enough to carry a fic this heavy.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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